After nearly a century, the iconic Oak Bluffs hardware store on Circuit Ave. will be closing its doors this weekend.
Phillips Hardware was founded in 1928 by John Phillips, and has stayed in the family ever since. Phillips’ granddaughters, Susan Phillips and her sister Donna Leon, who began working at Phillips during the summers when they were teenagers, currently run the store.
“It’s very emotional,” said Susan Phillips in a recent interview, noting that they have been serving Vineyard families for years. “Like us, multi-generations have come in –– we’ve had customers whose parents came in, and then their kid came in, and now they bring their grandchildren in.”
“You really end up getting close to a lot of them,” added Leon. “You get to know their parents and their children and dogs and cats; you get to know them on a first-name basis.”
Although sad to be closing shop, the call was a necessary one to make. Both are getting older and are looking forward to retiring.
“We really think Oak Bluffs needs a hardware store. It’s just, we feel like we can’t keep going on. I’m having bad back problems,” said Leon, who also added that she would like to be able to spend more time with her family and to watch her grandsons’ basketball and baseball games. “I feel like I’m always rushing up to see the last part of the game, and I’d like time just to sit there and watch the whole game and be part of it.”
In 2022, the sisters sold the building to the Pacheco family, who own Reliable Market, the grocery store neighboring them. They decided then that they would lease the building for three more years before retiring.
“We wanted to redo the building, because the building needs a lot of work. We tried for five years to pull that together, and that just didn’t work out; then we decided to sell the business, and the Pachecos bought it,” said Leon.
Their lease officially ended on June 15; however, the sisters and the Pacheco family decided to run throughout the season.
The story of how Leon and Phillips came to run the family store is similar to that of other Islanders who return to their home.
Leon said that after finishing college at Bryant University in Rhode Island in 1980, she lived off-Island for five years. She moved back to the Island with her husband when they began planning out their future with children. Initially it was her husband who wanted to return to Martha’s Vineyard, so that their children would be able to grow up around the family. Since moving back to the Island, Leon has raised three children, Heather, Michelle, and Chris.
Susan Phillips also went to Bryant, as did their mother and father. “I was only gone three months after I graduated college, so even though she’s older, I’ve been working longer at the family business,” said Phillips.
Since they announced the closing, customers have been coming in and sharing memories with the sisters. One customer in particular remembered a matchbox that used to be on display in the party section, which Leon recalled as well.
Working with family has its rewards, but it can also be challenging. Leon’s husband works at the store part-time, and her son is a full-time employee, so family vacations and outings are hard to plan. Travel in the summer is also not allowed, and any family parties planned need to take place on Sunday, when the store is closed.
Over the years, the sisters have seen Circuit Avenue change. “There’s businesses that have been around for a long, long time, and there’s other businesses that change every year,” said Leon. Phillips pointed out that there are several longstanding businesses in Oak Bluffs that continue to be family-owned. Giordano’s Restaurant was founded in 1930, daRosa’s in 1935, and Reliable Market in 1947, and each of these places remain run by the family.
The hardware store has given a lot back to the community over the years. During COVID, the sisters were able to create a program to keep the store open and keep giving their customers the resources they needed. People called the store and ordered their cleaning supplies, paintbrushes, home-maintenance supplies, and anything else they needed available in the wide selection of Phillips goods, and the sisters gathered their items, bagged them, and brought them to the door. “It was difficult doing it that way,” said Leon, “because someone would say ‘medium-size paintbrush,’ and that could be a variety of things. It’s kind of hard to not have people pick out what they want.”
“We were one of the few places that were open, and it was just a scary time, and again there was no staff here, it was just Donna and I,” said Phillips.
The store will officially close its doors on Sept. 27. A flash sale has been ongoing since last week, with items being anywhere from 20 to 30 percent off.
Phillips and Leon predict that the store will be a busy and emotional place on closing day. “I was just making it up, but [maybe we’ll] have a donation jar to give to Hospice or something, and if they make us cry, we donate it, and if we make them cry, they have to donate,” said Philips, who also added that there will be boxes of Kleenex in every aisle.